This Week’s Must-See Art Events

Shot from Jon Kessler's "The Web" (Image courtesy of www.urbanedgeny.com)

We’ll ring in Earth Day with a reminder about nuclear power plants, and then drink away our fears at Flux Factory’s boy-girl Tween Dream basement party. Jon Kessler fans still have a chance to catch the final night of The Web, the Jon Kessler experience of being inside a smartphone. And openings. So many openings.

Last week, a Yes Men lecture reminded us we’re screwed. Thinking we’ll need more wake-up calls like these, we’re heading over to BAM’s Earth Day screening of The Atomic States of America, a new documentary about the consequences of relying on nuclear power. Directors Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce will give a Q&A following the 7 PM screening.

As part of the Met’s two-part show on photo manipulation, New York Times editor Margaret Sullivan speaks to the dangers of photo manipulation. (Here’s a recent harmless example). For some background on the show, AFC’s Will Brand took a close look. Sadly, we won’t be able to make it as the talk is $25, not ‘recommended.’

As Frieze New York rolls around, now’s as good a time as ever to consider the labor that’s required to pull off large-scale art productions. Since 1993, artist Helke Bayrle has done so by shooting 137 videos of well-respected artists (Judith Hopf, Jason Rhoades, Wade Guyton) overseeing their own installations.

I’m glad to see more support for emerging painter Scott Goodman, whose first solo show at et al projects was one of the strongest I’ve seen at 56 Bogart. In part inspired by his work as a professional signmaker, Goodman works with space in a way that’s both open and completely flat, creating windows that look like cages, or passageways which double as brick walls. He shows alongside fellow Cooper Union grad and sculptor Jerry Blackman, who likewise seems interested in contradictions: the desire to touch, soft appearance and a hard exterior. If that’s not enough, it’s also time to pay the 6-month-old 109 Gallery a visit.

Flux Factory may be turning 19 this week, but they’re not growing up anytime soon. Expect a classic Flux Factory blow-out in this Saturday’s birthday party/fundraiser “Tween Dream Social,” “the best dance party you never had in your parents’ basement.” The celebration will feature YouTube karaoke, nail art, a ball pit, Viva Bodyroll dance party, a raid on the liquor cabinet, and more.
If this is anything like Flux Factory’s recent artist Iron Chef contest, it should be a blast.

I’m not sure that patterns is enough of an idea for a show premise, but what can I say– Robert Otto Epstein’s drawings and paintings of 1950s knitting instructions are really seductive. Maybe they show us a primitive representation of culture, or maybe they just look really pretty. I think they deserve a trip to find out. Epstein shows with Amos Satterlee, who also uses primitive computer code to show us scrolling colorful pattern blocks that are not unlike knitting.

For those of us who work during gallery hours, here’s our last chance to see Jon Kessler’s “The Web” at the Swiss Institute. Kessler, who’s known for making elaborate, often functionless machines, has constructed a canopied digital fort mimicking our immersion in computers. On Sunday, he’ll unveil an app he’s designed as part of the installation called “GlblVlgIdiot,” which sounds from the PR like a parody of techno-optimistic digital start-ups.

Painter and former AFC teacher Hanneline Røgeberg has her first solo show at Blackston Gallery. Never Odd or Even sounds like a perfect fit for an artist who strikes a balance; over the past few years, the work seems to have moved from extremely accomplished classical figurative painting to bodily abstract forms, found through process. We’ll be keeping an eye on how the work develops.

The Hunter MFA Program is hosting its open studios this Friday and Saturday, the final open studios before the program moves downtown to its new building. Come check out the work of over 100 artists in the building! Details below:

The public is invited to attend Open Studios at the Hunter College MFA Building, 450 West 41st Street, on Friday, April 26th 6-10pm and Saturday, April 27th 2-6pm. Come see the end of an era as over a 130 emerging artists open their studios at the Hell’s Kitchen location for the last time.

Come explore and discover new art and get to know artists from one of the most respected art programs in the nation. In addition to the range of screenings, performances (and who knows what else!) there will be a silent auction of student work Friday night where you can bid, and hopefully win, new work from emerging Hunters.

Join us as we celebrate and say goodbye to the renowned d-i-y studio that the program has occupied for decades before the move to the new Studio building in Tribeca in the fall.